The season to come....

 After enduring a few rather too cold days this past week today's milder temperature was most welcome and I felt compelled to take a break from my sewing and housework to walk around my winter garden and take a few photos of what is in flower at the moment. Due to a mischievous kitten waking me up early on Sunday morning I had time before church to pick some Daphne, Erlicheer daffodils and Violets to fill our home with their sweet fragrance for the rest of the week.

 These girls are starting to earn their keep this week too... they must have heard me threaten to replace them a few times lately. Store brought eggs are so inferior once you've had your own free-range ones. 

And these two A4 size art supply/journalling folders are what I've produced from my sewing attic this week. I was hoping to list them in my Etsy shop tonight but I'm not happy with how the colours have turned out in the numerous photos I took this afternoon. The colours are really washed out especially with the lighter one on top in the above photo. Will have to try again tomorrow...

 Disappointing photos aside I am happy with how they have turned out. LOVE these vibrant batik fabrics.

There are 3 large A4 sized pockets to hold sketching pads, an ipad or similar sized tablet along with individual pen pockets and a couple of  smaller pockets too. 

Lets hope this milder clear sunny weather lasts throughout the weekend at least. Surely spring must just be around the corner :-)

For the love of books.......

It is no secret to those who know me and my girls, that we all love to read a lot and therefore we have quite a collection of books or a small library in the case of the girls :-) There is always a book or two laying around in various places and a whole stack next to my bed at the moment. Some time ago when I was re-arranging and re-decorating our entrance room on the ground level of our home I got rid of our damaged and ugly bookcase and put my books in storage until I found the perfect bookcase at the right price. I have yet to find that perfect bookcase but last week I replaced a bedside table with a more appropriate set of bedside drawers in Caitlin's room. Having to fit the original little table she had been using elsewhere in our home I came up with the idea of displaying some of the very old books I had been given from my parents. Inspiration came from here, here and here. Two or three of them are in slight dis-repair but I quite like that. A couple of them date back to the 1930's so I think they deserve to be on display at that age and not packed up in a box in a garage. 

So when I was rescuing those old books I also found my Bible that I had been given way back in the 70's and decided it needed a nice bookcover to protect it and also make it look pretty and more me :-)

I used my favourite blue, turquoise and purple batik fabrics and embellished it with some machine embroidery stitches. 

My very favourite turquoise batik for the spine....

...a label stitiched on the back so I would know which was the front and back :-) and a ribbon bookmark was added to the top of the spine in a perfect colour combo of grey and turquoise.

And on the front inside I added a bookmark keeper to hold the small collection of bookmarks that were still in it.

I made this cover in just a few hours on Saturday afternoon and really enjoyed making something just for "me" for a change plus the whole challenge of designing it from scratch. Now it looks all very much at home and pretty sitting on a shelf above my bed.